Saturday, September 14, 2013

I'm Not Worthy

I'm 15 pages into Will Grayson Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan and all I can think is, "What made me think I can write?"

David Green I know. I've read a couple of his books and boy, he knows how to write today's kids. Paper Towns and An Abundance of Katherines are both great YA novels, the kind of book where you feel like you know these kids. If you are that age you want to be those kids, or hang out with them. I'm not familiar with Levithan, but I intend to remedy that in the coming weeks.

My son Max loves Green's work, has read everything by him in the library.

And now, 15 pages into Will Grayson Will Grayson, I suddenly see in a painful flash exactly why I was never able to make headway with my book, The Bones in the Closet. I have a great premise and some really good characters, but that's what they are, characters. The people in Green's books (and probably Levithan's although I don't know yet) are real people. And they write with an abandon I haven't mastered yet, a freedom I frankly am a little intimidated by.

I tell myself, "Well, yeah, but can they write pirate stories?" Because I'm still convinced Scurvy Dogs! is a good book, the one that's going to kick down the door of the publishing world. So I have that over them.

But if I'm going to make a story out of the really good premise for Bones, I've got a lot of work to do.

I've got to raise my game. Because I can write, but I'll have to write better.

Celebrate Green's brilliance, but be the best writer you can be and work toward that goal with each book. That's the beauty of reading. Many authors can touch us in different ways. There's a place for every voice.

About Me

Co-founder of Talk Like a Pirate Day, I'm a pirate and a writer, earning a living as a reporter and editor for an online news source while trying to write novels. I'm working on my fifth right now.In that time, I have kept a writing log, jotting down notes after the day's work is finished. I've decided to put it online as a blog, if for no other reason than to save the cost of a new notebook.